In the earlier part of this period the Government definitely adopted the policy of subsidising steamship companies in order to establish regular communication on routes where ordinary traffic would not have justified the requisite expenditure, and to ensure the provision of a better type of vessel than would otherwise have been forthcoming. The first contract was made with Samuel Cunard in 1839 for a subsidy of 16o,000 a year and was speedily followed by others. The subsidy policy, however, proved in practice very costly, the expenditure having by 1853, when it became the subject of a parliamentary enquiry, reached the very considerable sum of £853,000. Since that time the principle of the subsidy has gradually disappeared; its object had been fulfilled by the establishment of such far-reaching mail services as those of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and Messrs. Cunard. For the last 6o years the size and speed of mail ships has steadily increased, and the cost of the carriage of the mails diminished. At the present time even the practice of concluding regular contracts for the overseas mail service is becoming less and less frequent. The only contracts in force in 1928 were those with the White Star and Cunard companies for the Atlantic service, and with the Peninsular and Oriental Company for the service to India, Australia and the Far East. For all other destinations mails are carried by vessels running to ordinary commercial schedules, which are now so regular as to afford as satisfactory a mail service as that for which large subsidies were necessary at an earlier stage. At the time of writing (1928) the whole expendi ture on the overseas packet services is £746,000.
The use of non-contract ships for providing the mail service is, however, only a return to an earlier epoch in the history of the overseas mail service. The Government packets in the I 7th and i8th centuries were far from covering the whole field; for example Africa and Asia were never touched by them, and for correspondence to and from a great part of the world the only means of transport was the private ship. The post office for a long period made only a feeble attempt to secure control of this means of communication. It is true that as early as 166o it was provided that letterg brought by private ships should be handed over to the post office, and in 1711 it was enacted that fees should be paid to the captains for all letters handed over ; but during the whole of the i8th century letters were accepted for private conveyance without regard to the technical monopoly of the post office, and shipowners and the proprietors of coffee-houses openly kept bags for the acceptance of letters for abroad. The post office attempted in 1799 to incorporate the ship letter system into the ordinary postal service and to insist that all letters for private ships should pass through the post office, suitable gratuities being paid to the master for their conveyance. But the measures taken were not effective, and as late as 1827 certain coffee houses were still collecting letters in defiance of the law.
The general improvement in the postal service, and in particular the effective measures taken to establish regular mail services by private ships whenever such a course was advantageous, gradually abolished the incentive to forward letters by other means than by the post office ; but by an odd survival of old practice the law still expressly permits any person to send his letters by private ship without thereby infringing the monopoly of the postmaster general.
The history of air mails in Great Britain begins in 1911, when to celebrate the coronation of King George V. an air mail service was run between Hendon and Windsor. Twenty-one trips were performed and a considerable number of picture postcards, etc., carried ; but the service was very irregular and did not hold out much promise of the development which came a few years later.
The enormous development of aviation during the war inevitably caused the question of air mails to come up again for serious con sideration. After the armistice an experimental service which was run between Folkestone and Cologne for the benefit of the Army of Occupation clearly demonstrated the possibilities of this means of transport; and after some negotiation between the French and British post offices a regular service between London and Paris was established in Nov. 1919. The time-table was so ar ranged as to admit of a letter posted in London in the morning being delivered in the afternoon in Paris, and vice versa. The let ters were considered as being more analogous to telegrams than to letters, and a fee of 2s.6d. per oz. was charged in addition to the postage. Little traffic, however, was attracted; and in a few months the fee was reduced to 2d. per oz., which of course sent up materially the volume of the air mail. The establishment of a service to Paris was followed in 1920 by the establishment of air mails to Brussels and to Amsterdam, and in 1922 by the setting up of an air parcel post between London and Paris.
The next few years were remarkable for a considerable ex tension of air services all over Europe, and also in Asia and America. The most extensive service now in operation is that run by the United States post office. Starting from modest be ginnings it has developed until it now includes a Government operated trans-continental service, running continuously night and day, between New York and San Francisco, and a considerable number of other services in various parts of the country which are run under contract with the post office. The installation for the trans-continental service, with its system of continuous bea cons and landing grounds, is the most complete in the world, and the service is in other respects in a unique position, as climatic conditions are unusually favourable, and the districts linked up by air are wealthy and populous. From the point of view of traffic this is the most successful air service in the world.